Creative Piano/Music Teaching And Music Parenting

New FREE Printable: A Piano Project Kids Love

In yesterday’s post I shared some pictures and video from our Piano Bears Spring Project where the students made bears at Build A Bear Workshop that have a recording of them playing the piano. The picture above is one of the bears a student made.

My students and I enjoyed working on this project because it gave the students a chance to do something fun and memorable with their music. Every time they squeeze their bear they get to hear how their hard work all year has paid off!

I too was disappointed when I realized I wouldn’t be able to get more than 10 seconds. I looked all over Amazon and couldn’t find any. In the process though I found that it gave my students an opportunity to make critical decisions about whether or not their piece sounded good at the increased tempos. When they didn’t sound good we just kept trying until we found one of their pieces that did. Sometimes we got some that sounded even better at the fast speeds than at the regular speed. It gave the kids a lesson in how simply changing the tempo can create a new song entirely! The short time frame also gave me a chance to emphasize the importance of the chorus or hook in a song and that that is the most memorable part. Some of the kids chose to just play the chorus instead of trying to speed up the whole song. I worried at first that parents might be upset about the brief recording, but everybody was genuinely pleased with the product. Sorry for the long response –

Hey! I just chanced upon your piano website while surfing for some piano resources, and I came across this Bear project you had. That’s creative! You give me the idea to my the piano kids do something fun and creative 🙂

Thanks for stopping by, Valerie! We had a lot of fun with the project and the kids love bringing their bears back to lessons. There are so many possibilities with this project. I hope you get a chance to do it and that your students have as much fun as mine are having!